James 'Jimmy' Simpson (1873 – September 24, 1938) was a British-Canadian trade unionist, printer, journalist and left-wing politician in Toronto, Ontario. He was a longtime member of Toronto's city council and served as Mayor of Toronto in 1935, the first member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation to serve in that capacity. He was also a member of the Orange Order in Canada.
James Simpson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 44th Mayor of Toronto | |
| In office January 1, 1935 – December 31, 1935 | |
| Preceded by | William Stewart |
| Succeeded by | Samuel McBride |
| Toronto Controller | |
| In office 1914, 1930 – 1935 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1873 |
| Died | September 24, 1938 (aged 64) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Party | Cooperative Commonwealth Federation |
Other political affiliations | Socialist Party of Canada Canadian Labour Party |
| Occupation | Printer, journalist |
| Profession | Trade unionist |
Early life
editJames Simpson was born in Lancashire, England and immigrated to Canada at the age of 14. Never attending high school, Simpson worked selling newspapers at the age of 10 and then began working for a grocer at the age of 13 before moving to Canada where he worked in a tin factory before joining the printing trade. He was informally known as Jimmy.[1]
Career
editPrinting trade and journalism
editIn 1892, Simpson was one of 27 members of the Typographical Union on strike against the Toronto News. The strikers, including Simpson, founded the Evening Star on November 3, 1892, as a strike paper.[2] For ten years, Simpson served as the Star's City Hall reporter including nine years as the paper's municipal editor.[1] He subsequently became editor of a labour newspaper.[3]
In 1900, Simpson and eight others founded the Ruskin Literary and Debating Society. He served as its first president. Today, it is Canada's oldest debating society.[4]
Labour leader
editSimpson went on to become a labour leader and was the vice-president of the Toronto and District Trades and Labour Council at the turn of the century and also served three terms as vice-president of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada between 1904 and 1936.
Labour Party
edit
As a socialist labour politician, he ran in the May 1902 Ontario election in Toronto. As a candidate for the newly-formed Socialist Party of Canada, he ran in Toronto North in the 1905 Ontario provincial election and in a 1906 provincial by-election in Toronto and in the 1908 provincial election, all unsuccessfully.[5]
He was elected and served as a Toronto school board trustee, 1905–10.
He ran for mayor of Toronto in the 1908 Toronto municipal election as a Socialist but was not elected.[6]
He was elected to the Toronto Board of Control in 1914 with the highest vote total ever given a candidate up to that time[1] and sat on the Board of Control again from 1930 to 1934.[7]
He was one of the co-leaders of the Ontario Labour Party (Ontario section of the Canadian Labour Party) in the 1920s and a Labour candidate for the House of Commons of Canada in Parkdale in the 1921 Canadian federal election, in Toronto Northwest in 1925 and 1926 Canadian federal elections but was unable to win election to Parliament.
Simpson played a leading role in opposing Communists in the Labour Party. After Communists convinced the party to withdraw its nomination of Simpson as its candidate for Toronto city council's Board of Control in 1927, Simpson and his supporters quit the party leading to its collapse. They then formed the Toronto Labour Party, which explicitly excluded Communists from membership.
Mayor
editIn the 1930s, he became a leading member of the Ontario CCF. In 1934 he ran as a CCF candidate for the Toronto Board of Control and was elected which set the stage for him to run for Mayor of Toronto in the 1935 municipal election. The only one of the city's newspapers to support him was the Toronto Daily Star. The other papers and both the Conservative and Liberal parties supported Simpson's opponent, Alderman Harry W. Hunt and accused the CCF of being anti-British and under Communist influence. Percy Parker, a leading Liberal, declared on the radio that "the bells of Moscow will ring when Simpson is elected mayor."
Simpson's personal popularity and the organization put together by the CCF and the trade union movement was enough to elect him making Toronto the largest city in North America to have elected a socialist mayor. As mayor, Simpson supported the campaign to boycott the 1936 Summer Olympics being held in Nazi Germany and holding an alternative games, the People's Olympiad, in Barcelona, Spain instead.[8]
Religion
editSimpson was a Methodist and Christian socialist who became active with the Epworth League movement at the age of 16 ultimately becoming president of the Epworth League Toronto Conference. He also served as president of the Toronto Methodist Young People's Union and the Toronto Methodists' Cycling Union.[1] Simpson was intensely anti-Catholic which cost him the support of the Toronto Star. When he ran for re-election as mayor in 1936 this contributed to his defeat.
Death
editSimpson had a very public death when the car he was driving collided into a streetcar at the intersection of Spadina Avenue and Harbour Street.[1] People rushed to save the victims but they ultimately died at Saint Michael's Hospital within a few hours of the crash.[3]
Electoral Record
editFederal
edit| 1921 Canadian federal election: Parkdale | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | ||||
| Conservative | David Spence | 10,705 | ||||
| Liberal | William Douglas | 5,487 | ||||
| Labour | James Simpson | 2,723 | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Thomas Langton Church | 16,329 | |||
| Liberal | James Gilchrist | 3,106 | |||
| Labour | James Simpson | 1,542 | |||
| Independent Conservative | Caroline Sophia Brown | 544 | |||
| Independent Conservative | Wallace Cochrane | 104 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Thomas Langton Church | 12,071 | |||
| Liberal | John Frederick Boyd | 2,637 | |||
| Labour | James Simpson | 1,267 | |||
Provincial
edit| 1905 Ontario general election: Toronto North | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes[9][10] | Vote % | |
| Conservative | Beattie Nesbitt | 5,163 | 56.4 | |
| Liberal | Hugh Blain | 3,780 | 41.3 | |
| Socialist | James Simpson | 211 | 2.3 | |
| Total | 4,949 | |||
| By-election, February 22, 1906: Toronto North | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes[11] | Vote % | |
| Conservative | William McNaught | 3,819 | 57.9 | |
| Liberal | Thomas Urquhart | 2,518 | 38.2 | |
| Socialist | James Simpson | 260 | 3.9 | |
| Total | 6,597 | |||
| 1908 Ontario general election: Toronto North | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes[12][13] | Vote % | |
| Conservative | John Shaw | 4,176 | 52.1 | |
| Liberal | Mr. Hossack | 3,643 | 45.5 | |
| Socialist | James Simpson | 190 | 2.4 | |
| Total | 8,008 | |||
Municipal
edit| 1908 Toronto Mayoral Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| Joseph Oliver | 14,022 |
| George Reginald Geary | 7,124 |
| Beattie Nesbitt | 6,504 |
| James Simpson | 3,701 |
| Miles Vokes | 964 |
| 1914 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| James Simpson | 20,695 |
| J.O. McCarthy | 17,490 |
| Tommy Church | 17,085 |
| John O'Neill | 14,597 |
| Joseph Elijah Thompson | 14,233 |
| Thomas Foster | 13,929 |
| Robert Yeomans | 11,708 |
| A. J. H. Eckardt | 7,755 |
| 1930 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| W.A. Summerville | 47,418 |
| Claude Pearce | 46,692 |
| James Simpson | 44,921 |
| William D. Robbins | 39,023 |
| Benjamin Miller | 37,156 |
| Frank Whetter | 31,772 |
| Brook Sykes | 28,043 |
| Wesley Benson | 25,054 |
| Harry Bradley | 2,617 |
| 1931 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| J. George Ramsden | 51,043 |
| William D. Robbins | 50,801 |
| James Simpson | 48,105 |
| Albert Hacker | 43,763 |
| John Boland | 41,779 |
| Claude Pearce | 40,431 |
| W.A. Summerville | 19,087 |
| Thomas Foster | 13,491 |
| James Cotton | 9,014 |
| George King | 3,154 |
| Tim Buck | 3,010 |
| 1932 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| James Simpson | 42,010 |
| J. George Ramsden | 38,200 |
| Sam McBride | 31,939 |
| William D. Robbins | 31,067 |
| Albert Hacker | 30,348 |
| Claude Pearce | 23,659 |
| James Cotton | 6,440 |
| Tim Buck | 5,974 |
| Harry Bradley | 1,726 |
| 1933 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| J. George Ramsden | 55,503 |
| Sam McBride | 55,323 |
| James Simpson | 54,218 |
| William D. Robbins | 48,061 |
| Albert Hacker | 37,019 |
| John Boland | 36,645 |
| William Miller | 18,836 |
| James Cotton | 11,871 |
| Alice Buck | 10,155 |
| W.J. Haire | 3,066 |
| J.H.H. Ballantyne | 2,183 |
| 1934 Toronto Board of Control Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| Sam McBride | 54,855 |
| J. George Ramsden | 48,152 |
| James Simpson | 47,358 |
| William D. Robbins | 37,714 |
| William J. Wadsworth | 36,289 |
| Claude Pearce | 31,156 |
| Percy Quinn | 26,872 |
| Alice Buck | 9,767 |
| Harry Bradley | 2,623 |
| 1935 Toronto Mayoral Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| James Simpson | 54,400 |
| Harry W. Hunt | 50,986 |
| J. George Ramsden | 16,851 |
| A.E. Smith | 4,760 |
| January 1936 Toronto Mayoral Election | |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes |
| Sam McBride | 48,723 |
| Harry W. Hunt | 43,036 |
| James Simpson | 32,636 |
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 Star staff (September 26, 1938). "Former Mayor J. Simpson Killed With U.S. Companion". Toronto Daily Star (Home and Sport ed.). The Toronto Star, Limited. p. 13. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved March 22, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Horton, Michael (November 1, 2002). "Out of the darkness The Evening Star is born". Toronto Star. Torstar. p. D2. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved March 22, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
- 1 2 Star staff (September 26, 1938). "The Late James Simpson". Toronto Daily Star (Home and Sport ed.). The Toronto Star, Limited. p. 4. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved March 22, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Cherry, Zena (February 16, 1980). "Club says aye to first woman". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: FP Publications. p. 17. ISSN 0319-0714. ProQuest 386890688. Retrieved March 22, 2026.
- ↑ Newell, Peter (February 23, 1906) "The Impossibilist." Edmonton Bulletin.
- ↑ Edmonton Bulletin, Jan. 2, 1908
- ↑ Taylor, Rupert J., (December 1, 1997). "Labour history: The struggle for workers' rights", Canada & the World Backgrounder.
- ↑ Kidd, Bruce (August 18, 1980). "Early Boycotts". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: Thomson Corporation. p. 6. ISSN 0319-0714. ProQuest 386819801. Retrieved March 22, 2026.
- ↑ "Toronto Leads the Van in Conservative Sweep". The Globe. Toronto. 1905-01-26. p. 8.
- ↑ "Conservatives Roll up 10,000 Majority". Toronto Daily Star. Toronto. 1905-01-26. p. 4.
- ↑ "Small Vote Was Polled". The Globe. Toronto. February 23, 1906. p. 5.
- ↑ "The City Returns Came in Quickly, The Vote in Toronto". The Toronto Daily Star. Toronto. 1908-06-09. p. 10.
- ↑ "Toronto Yet Tory; A Straight Eight: Liberals and Independents Were All Defeated". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. 1908-06-09. p. 4.
Further reading
edit- Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920. By Ian McKay. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2008.